NCJ Number
205939
Journal
Child Abuse and Neglect Volume: 25 Issue: 6 Dated: June 2001 Pages: 855-868
Editor(s)
Richard D. Krugman
Date Published
June 2001
Length
14 pages
Annotation
This article presents the use of “errorless compliance training” piloted with two mothers who were trained to use the intervention to reduce severe child defiance that was precipitating mother/child confrontations and physical abuse.
Abstract
Based on learning principles similar to those used in errorless discrimination training, “errorless compliance training," was developed to preclude decelerative consequences in the treatment of child conduct problems. This article piloted the errorless approach with two mothers who were referred because of abusive attempts at managing child behavior. The goal was to increase parenting skills by teaching a noncoercive disciplinary approach, and to reduce child oppositional behavior in an attempt to eliminate a prominent trigger for maltreatment. Mothers delivering requests to their child were observed to determine probability of child compliance to specific requests. Time-series observational data indicated that the children, who were extremely oppositional before treatment, became highly cooperative with parental requests throughout and after intervention. In summary, mothers who had been abused by partners and were abusing their children, were taught to improve parent/child interactions using errorless compliance training. The training provided mothers with skills to improve child behavior without the use of coercive consequences which could lead to further abusive interactions. The decrease in child noncompliance during and after treatment reduced child behavioral triggers for maltreatment. References